NASA, adrift

Private companies are ready to step up, but NASA has nowhere to go.

Copyright 2015: Houston Chronicle

Updated
9:01 am CST, Wednesday, February 4, 2015

A Delta 2 rocket carrying the Soil Moisture Active Passive, SMAP, satellite launches early Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The launch is a three-year mission to track the amount of water locked in soil, which may help residents in low-lying regions brace for floods or farmers prepare for drought conditions. (AP Photo/NASA, Bill Ingalls) less

A Delta 2 rocket carrying the Soil Moisture Active Passive, SMAP, satellite launches early Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The launch is a three-year mission to track the amount ... more

Photo: Bill Ingalls, HOPD

Photo: Bill Ingalls, HOPD

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A Delta 2 rocket carrying the Soil Moisture Active Passive, SMAP, satellite launches early Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The launch is a three-year mission to track the amount of water locked in soil, which may help residents in low-lying regions brace for floods or farmers prepare for drought conditions. (AP Photo/NASA, Bill Ingalls) less

A Delta 2 rocket carrying the Soil Moisture Active Passive, SMAP, satellite launches early Saturday, Jan. 31, 2015 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The launch is a three-year mission to track the amount ... more

Photo: Bill Ingalls, HOPD

NASA, adrift

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In a speech Monday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden called the agency's proposed budget a "clear vote of confidence" in NASA's employees. It looks more like a vote of confidence in the employees of SpaceX.

The space agency's $18.5 billion budget, proposed by President Barack Obama, adds $519 million in new funding, but much of that increase is dedicated to the commercial crew program ("Obama's NASA budget to fund rocket, spacecraft," Page A1, Tuesday).

After the Space Shuttle program was retired in 2011, the United States has relied on Russia's Soyuz capsules to ferry our astronauts to the International Space Station. We're charged more than $70 million per seat for the privilege. As part of building a new route into space, NASA has been contracting with SpaceX and Boeing to develop manned spaceflight capabilities that could deliver astronauts to the International Space Station. This so-called space taxi service will promote the domestic space industry while providing NASA with a cheaper route into low-Earth orbit. NASA has already relied on private companies for unmanned cargo missions to the International Space Station, and ferrying astronauts is the next step.

Shifting to the private sector for manned missions may seem like a threat to Houston's role as the home to NASA's astronaut corps, but this is more of a collaboration than a zero-sum competition.

SpaceX is currently building a launch site on the South Texas coast at Boca Chica Beach, where it plans to launch its Falcon rockets. Boeing already has contracted with Houston's Johnson Space Center to use its Mission Control for flights, a welcome development for that currently underutilized facility.

The promise of less expensive launches should also mean more room in the budget to sustain the International Space Station, a core duty of the Johnson Space Center. If Congress doesn't have room in the budget for humanity's only outpost beyond the Earth's surface, Houstonians can say goodbye to Mission Control as one of our city's key economic jewels.

The commercial crew program also lets NASA move beyond low-Earth orbit. After years of perfecting the technology and developing the expertise, now is the time for the private sector to fill in where NASA once broke ground, freeing up the space agency's engineers and scientists to focus on the next frontier.

This is where the proposed budget falls apart. As Chronicle reporter Eric Berger diligently laid out last year in his "Adrift" series, NASA has failed to fully dedicate itself to a new giant leap in manned space exploration. Despite rhetoric and optimism from the top, NASA lacks the focus and funding necessary for something on the scale of a moon shot. Berger's reporting has made clear that NASA's $4.5 billion exploration budget is far below what is needed to send an astronaut to Mars and return her safely. The agency's focus is also divided between a mission to Mars and plans to use a robotic spacecraft to put an asteroid near the moon, followed by a manned landing on the space rock.

Meanwhile, Houston's own Rep. John Culberson, a Republican who chairs the House appropriations subcommittee responsible for the NASA budget, has put his weight behind a planned probe to the Jovian moon Europa. That icy moon may be humanity's best hope for finding life beyond Earth within our solar system, but Culberson's advocacy does more to help California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory than Houston's Johnson Space Center.

With its current funding and priorities, NASA's next big thing won't be until 2017, when it holds another unmanned test launch of the Orion space capsule. Orion is supposed to get humanity to Mars, but NASA can barely get it off the ground without a multi-year turnaround time.

It has been more than 40 years since Houstonians left footprints on alien soil. It likely won't be another 40 before we do it again, but there's no guarantee those footprints will be accompanied by an American flag.